I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Palo Alto, Calif. — In September, more than 200 people waited in line in the early morning hours waiting for the Applestore here to open so they could be among the first to buy an iPhone 5.

Apple fanboys and girls were sparse as the Palo Alto, CA store prepared to open at 8 a.m. and sell the new iPad mini.

Today, not so much.

The hordes of Apple fanboys and girls in Palo Alto, hometown to CEO Tim Cook, were missing as the new iPad mini, a smaller-screen model of the popular tablet, went on sale in the U.S.

That’s not to say there wasn’t a line. About 50 iPad mini buyers were in the queue before the doors opened at 8 a.m. They were greeted by almost twice that number of blue-shirted retail employees, who escorted each customer into the store to the applause and cheers of the other clerks and Apple Geniuses waiting inside.

Reporters stood in the street outside, snapping photos of the new iPad owners. By 8:20 a.m., the line was clear and most had walked off with their new gadget.

Even so, analyst are optimistic that the iPad mini will win over millions of buyers. While fewer people lined up in New York at Apple’s Fifth Avenue than they did for the release of the third-generation iPad in March, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts the company will sell 1 million to 1.5 million this weekend and that the product will go on to be a “hit.”

“While launch lines and initial weekend sales may not be as impressive as previous iPad launches, the iPad Mini will be a hit product for Apple and become a more significant part of the story over the next two to three quarters,” Munster said in a note this morning.

Smaller, Lighter

Louis Brayer, who arrived in Palo Alto from Switzerland last night, said he got in line – the first-time he’s ever queued up for the debut of an Apple product — to buy a new 32-gig iPad mini because he had jet lag and thought, ‘Why not.’ An iPad 2 user who expects to pass on that device to a friend or family, Brayer said he wanted one of the newer smaller tablets “because it’s smaller and lighter.”

That’s what Apple is counting on, too. Cook is looking to the mini, which starts at $329 for a model that works with WiFi networks, to win over customers who weren’t willing to pay $399 or more for the 9.7-inch versions of its best-telling tablet. Apple is also looking to the 7.9-inch mini to stave off competitors including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which are also working to build mobile empires around new devices.

On the plus side, Apple has its reputation as a supplier of cool technology and design, selling more than 100 million iPads since the tablet made its debut in 2010. It has its all-important “ecosystem,” with an App Store that offers more than 700,000 apps, including 275,000 designed specifically for the iPad, and the iTunes store, which offers up music, TV shows, movies and podcasts.

And it’s also got a lot of customers and developers enthused about its technology. There are than 400 million iTunes account holders, and Applesaid last month that it has paid out $6.5 billion to developers who have created apps for the iOS mobile operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod.

But Apple still needs to convince buyers that its new lowest-priced iPad is worth the price, especially during this quarter’s holiday shopping season — one of the biggest periods for the company’s sales.

Google’s Nexus 7, released in July, starts at $199, and the company said this week there are now 700,000 apps available for the Android device through the Google Play store. Amazon’s Kindle Fire 7 also starts at $199.

‘Easiest, Funnest To Use’

Reviews of the mini have been mostly positive, though it hasn’t escaped criticism for its higher price tag and lack of a high-definition display. “By pricing the Mini so high, Apple allows the $200 class of seven-inch Android tablets and readers to live (Google Nexus, Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD),” New York Times reviewer David Pogue said earlier this week. “Those tablets also, by the way, have high-definition screens (1,280 by 800 pixels), which the Mini doesn’t.”

Apple analysts are optimistic that the mini will help make the iPad – which contributes about 21 percent of revenue today – a bigger part of the company’s business and inspire the “lust” the company aims to achieve with its products.

Apple store employees, cheering on buyers, outnumbered iPad mini customers. The last customer in the queue walked through the doors about 20 minutes after the store opened.

“When you’re a company like Apple who has had such big and unexpected success over the past decade, the bar is set especially high, almost to a double standard. For this reason, we are not surprised to see lukewarm reviews on pretty much every product refresh over the past few years. There is always something to complain about when one is looking for something wrong,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. “What a lot of critics miss is that Apple’s products are still by far the easiest and funnest to use, with price points that most find reasonable.”

Three models, priced starting at $459 that work with WiFi and cellular networks, will go on sale in a few weeks – giving the Apple faithful another reason to stand in line.

The lack of cellular models may have led to the shorter lines today as customers wait to buy until those versions are out. Hurricane Sandy may have also led to smaller turnout on the East Coast. Piper Jaffray counted 580 customers in line this morning at the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which compares to the 750 or so Munster said he counted in line at the same store for third-generation iPad.

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And since you are calling out David Pogue as a critic of it’s price and display, had you quoted him fully your readers would have been told: “But the iPad Mini is a far classier, more attractive, thinner machine. It has two cameras instead of one. Its fit and finish are far more refined. And above all, it offers that colossal app catalog, which Android tablet owners can only dream about.”

Online ordering has been in place, as I’m sure you’re aware, for a good long while now, including for previous versions of the iPad and iPhone. So that’s factored into the analyst estimates for early sales. But they also still look to the early lines to see what the buzz factor is around any new Apple product.

The Mini iPad isn’t the only new tablet released this week, the Novo 7 Flame 32GB is now available which offers a pretty impressive 7 Inch Android tablet priced at $189 at a site called TabletSprint — with a 1280×800 High Resolution screen, 2nd Gen Dual Core CPU, 32GB Memory, MicroSD portable storage, an HDMI connection to your TV with full 1080p (HD) that’s great for movie downloads, a 5 megapixel Rear Camera with AF & Flash and a 2 MP webcam; Plus great connection – Bluetooth, WiFi, Ethernet, and an option for 3G. The tablet is made by Ainol Electronics, which received “Best Tablet of the Year” runner-up status at CNET Consumer Electronics Show 2012 – Two other models are also being released and both are 10-inch tablets with high resolution screens; one offers most features as above, with a Dual Core CPU and a 1280×800 display for $220; and a similar model that features a powerful Quad Core with a stunning 1920×1200 Liquid Crystal display (like Apple’s Retina screen) for around $269. All offer a pretty nice specs-price ratio and one of the first online sites to offer this new line of tablets is TabletSprint – which also features a few tablets with 3G built-in as well.